


Supernova

by theshockblanket



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Assisted Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-01
Updated: 2012-03-01
Packaged: 2017-11-03 17:56:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshockblanket/pseuds/theshockblanket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the following prompts: <b> 1] "</b>Sherlock tells John that he loves him. At 82, on John's death bed. <b>2] </b>Sherlock proposes to John in Morse code.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Supernova

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** I feel like this is a potentially very triggery fic and I would ask you to check the tags before carrying on D: Also, the manip is by me, but the quote is from the last stanza of 'Last Words' by Dannie Abse. He is a poet from my country, Wales, and he was a dedicated doctor before his poetry days, so it seemed particularly appropriate for John.

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/theshockblanket/pic/0000b03t/)

  


__ If you can listen to this while you read, you'll understand how I felt whilst writing it. It's the version without lyrics, as that was more appropriate. I promise, it is beautiful. 'Nuvole Bianche' translates to 'White Clouds'.  
  


  
  
  
**SUSSEX HOSPITAL INTENSIVE CARE UNIT, 2052**  
  
**.-.. --- ...- . / -.-- --- ..-**

　

It will be painless. John knows this, and is not afraid.

Sherlock ghosts a hand along his body in the almost-darkness, along the paper-thin skin of his ankles and the inside of his calves, up past his hips and across his ribcage. Pressing a shaking palm to John’s chest, he finds the heartbeat light but steady, and envies him.

He can see the moment of indecision as the detective’s hands move to the machine; it’s the work of moments to disable the auxiliary power supply, but the real power cord is still live, tethering John to a cold machine, trapped in an artificial life. A half-life.

It would be easy, he knows, for Sherlock to be selfish; for him to call the nurse; report him and have him sedated to stop him from being a danger to himself. To bind him there with him, so Sherlock is not alone. A part of him aches to give him that much.

But he has begged for this, in looks and words and vomited blood, and he is eighty-two and he has earned the right to die in dignity.

“ _Please_ ,” he whispers, as Sherlock chokes, “ _Don’t leave me_.”

There is an endless silence that stretches into minutes as they watch each other.

Sherlock’s eyes are pleading, desperate. John’s are resolute.

John wins.

His best friend bends down, bones creaking, to the socket; does it in a short, quick jerk of white-hot anger and sorrow.

The life-support screen goes black. Dead.

　

John takes a ragged breath. They have minutes at best.

　

Sherlock fumbles, pulling thin catheters from John’s skin, deliberately not watching the blood well up; thanking God that the pain-relieving drugs are still active.

“Do I get a last request?” Sherlock’s voice is rough; aching.

“Thought that was my line,” rasps John, but he nods anyway, as much as he can with a body that no longer hears him. He watches the way Sherlock’s throat shudders as he swallows. _Fear._

“I want,” says Sherlock, and his knuckles are white. “I want...”

John waits. He is good at it; he has had decades to practise.

Words form on Sherlock’s lips, and fall away, silent, but John sees the way his fingers tap out a question on the bed sheets; remembers his army training, ingrained, and _knows._

And it is sweet release.

“ _Yes_ ,” he says - stupidly, ridiculously; there is no priest, no book to sign, no time or strength for it if they did - and then he realises that none of that is necessary; nothing else has ever _been_ necessary. He is John and this is Sherlock and there are maybe ninety seconds of that left, but it is all he has. “Yes.”

It’s a struggle even to sit, but John manages. He stretches out his hands - steady now, as they have been since he shot the cabbie, _so very long ago_ _-_ and Sherlock kneels on the mattress; leans into him.

They brush their lips together, John stealing the life from Sherlock’s lips, and he can taste salt tears.

“Will you…”

“Always.”

“I-” he rasps against Sherlock’s lips, and then he stops, because words are arbitrary, limiting, and Death is looming very close and bigger than either of them, but not bigger than _this._

They rest their heads together, Sherlock’s brow to John’s temple, hands cupping each other’s cheeks, fingertips splayed against hairlines.

Slowly, Sherlock’s fingers begin to move.

_Tap; press; tap; tap._

_Press; press; press._

_Tap-tap-tap; press._

_Tap…_

_Press; tap; press; press._

_Press; press; press._

_Tap; tap; press._

He can feel Sherlock trembling.

His body is failing now, without the life-support, but he thinks of Afghanistan, half a century ago; remembers _please God, let me live._

And oh, he has _lived._

He smiles, suddenly radiant; feels Sherlock’s irrational response against his cheek. For a moment they are twin stars; bright, blazing-hot in the darkness; two men who have spent a lifetime together without a single moment being dull. In the dying supernova of his mind’s eye, he sees them as they are; themselves, forty years younger, laughing in the hallway of Baker Street, adrenaline flaring, breathless and brilliant from running. The memory is _exhilarating._

  
  
He lifts his fingertips.

_Tap; press; tap; tap._

_Press; press; press._

_Tap-tap-tap; press._

_Tap…_

_Press; tap; press; press._

_Press; press; press._

_Tap; tap; pre-_

**stop.**

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****

****

**.-.. --- ...- . / -.-- --- ..-**   
  
**l   o  v  e / y   o   u**

  


  



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